Chapter 4: Investigation-II
Leon sat cross-legged on the dusty floor of his room, the fading light casting long shadows from the open window. He stared at the wooden floorboards, brow furrowed.
"My father's journal... Where did I put it?"
He reached under his bed, brushing past old books and a crumpled blanket. His hand touched leather - cracked and warm. He pulled it out slowly.
A thick, worn journal.
The cover read in faded gold:
Journal I: Ruin of the Forgotten God
The scent of old paper and charcoal ink hit him like a memory. He flipped it open.
---
✧ 2006/09/27
Today, an ancient ruin was discovered in the Tai Mountains - near the Suicide Forest. At first, we were hired simply to map and photograph it. But something's wrong with this place. The rocks hum at night.
---
✧ 2006/09/28
We entered the cave. On the walls, strange sigils - unlike any writing I've ever seen. 158 unique characters, all looping and spiked. Like someone wrote while watching you from behind.
(Below is a sketch - jagged spiral symbols, arrows pointing inward)
---
✧ 2006/10/01
Deeper in the ruins, we found a symbol carved everywhere.
A circle... inside it, a triangle... and within that, a smaller triangle... until it becomes a single dot.
(What does this mean? A portal? An eye? Or something... watching?)
---
✧ 2006/10/03
The cave is no maze - it's a journal.
The walls document monsters. Gnomes with hollow faces, werewolves with bent limbs, two-headed crows, and a bat with four wings.
(Drawings follow: distorted creatures, eyes scratched out in ink.)
Near each one, the same repeated symbols appear. Are these names? Warnings? Spells?
---
✧ 2006/10/26
This ruin... it catalogues folklore. Not just ours - myths no one's heard of. Ancient and wrong.
But how? This predates any known civilization here. It shouldn't exist.
---
✧ 2006/11/14
We finally reached the pyramid inside the mountain. Each stone bears the same repeating sequence of characters. They almost chant something.
We opened the temple door today. The carvings continued inside... deeper... louder.
---
✧ 2006/12/25
We're finally making progress decoding the language. But we all feel it - like the shadows move when we aren't looking. Something is here.
(Ink smeared here violently)
I think... it sees us.
---
Leon blinked.
"This is insane..." he whispered.
A knock on the door startled him.
"Leon! What are you doing in there? Come eat!" Dayana's voice pierced through.
He groaned and stood, about to close the journal when she yelled again.
"Don't tell me you're masturbating or something!"
"Shut up!" he growled, yanking the door open, cheeks flushing. She snickered.
As he left, a gust of wind from the open window flipped the journal's pages violently. One stopped mid-flutter.
A page written in red ink.
Leon didn't see it.
---
✧ (Scrawled in jagged handwriting)
DO NOT TRUST ANYONE.
HE IS WATCHING.
HE IS WATCHING.
HE IS WATCH-
(Ink smears violently. A bloody fingerprint remains.)
(A crude drawing follows: A vertical eye inside a triangle, bleeding.)
Don't speak the names aloud.
Don't dream in triangles.
He likes when you look.
Meanwhile somewhere far away
The humming of electric lights echoed across the concrete bunker, deep underground. On the far wall, a glowing screen displayed fragmented footage-static-laced images of a ruined temple, a pool of blood, and the brief glimpse of a symbol:
A triangle within a triangle, endlessly repeating, ending in a dot.
An old man in a dark uniform stood before a group of elite soldiers. His voice was low and sharp.
"We are not soldiers. We are shadows. We don't protect people from threats-they never need to know they existed."
Behind him, etched in steel on the wall, were the initials:
T.A.N.O.A.T.
(Trackers And Neutralizers Of Alien Threats)
This was Operation Silver Lining, the elite strike team under his command.
A girl with silver-white hair stepped forward, her boots echoing in the silence. She saluted, her voice calm and cold.
"Mission completed. We've retrieved a fragment of the relic."
Her name was Silver-and she wasn't just a member. She was the team's spearhead.
"The cave had traces of radiation and aetheric energy," she continued. "We believe the ritual was interrupted, but... the mastermind escaped."
The old man narrowed his eyes. "Casualties?"
"...Fourteen children. Used as sacrifice. The cult had already begun the process when we arrived."
A heavy silence fell.
One of the analysts at the back whispered, "They called themselves The Pale Circle. Same as the previous incident in Vienna. They left behind the same symbol."
The old man turned to the holographic projection. The endless triangle pattern spun slowly on the screen. In red, a decoded phrase flickered underneath:
"Do not trust anyone. He is watching."
Silver's eyes remained on the screen. Her fingers trembled just slightly before she curled them into a fist.
"He was there, Commander. I could feel it."
The old man's voice lowered. "The Architect?"
Silver nodded.
the old man's voice was low.
>"He watches us... like we're part of a plan he drew long ago."
Outside the war room, sirens blared faintly as transports returned from the field. In the shadows of this secret war, TANOAT continued to battle what the world could never understand.
But deep beneath it all, in the core of every case, every ruin, every whisper in the dark...
He was watching.
[to be continued...]